First, as a traditional Greek American whose mantel place is full of cycladic art (and one weird alien thing I want to get a picture of) it’s incredibly odd to imagine them being painted.
In class I say all of them had one hand over the other (note sure which, but it was uniform). I wonder how that came about, if it was like the Egyptians who favored a specific foot forward, or if they’re simply copycats and it was easiest to keep the arms as were.
As we begin talking about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, I realize I threw out all my notes from the History of Ancient Greek and Roman Medicine and wanna scream.
We talk about cults. I don’t really know what this means. I think of a cult leader who is fundamentally a manipulative person, sometimes simply selfish, sometimes driven to harm others, sometimes just plain old nuts. But I don’t think this definition holds up the Ancient Greeks. Instead, I wonder if cults were kind of like different clubs at school. You have the Varsity athletes, the TaeKwonDoe folks, the engineers, and the general misc. students who aren’t particular to anything who would be like your day to day Minoan/Mycenaean/proto-Greek.
Also some point the textbook alluded to (in the primary sources with linear B, I believe) human sacrifice. ???????????????????????????????????
Last note, in class, we were looking at images of people and Prof. H (who will presumably be the only other person reading this, which makes me think I should say “you” but that’s creepy) was pointing out the different men and women represented on pottery. And some were clearly women, i.e. jewelry, breasts, dresses, but sometimes this was with images of just triangle people in loinclothes so how do we know they’re women? (I remember one was boxing on the pottery)
On the whole, I still have no idea how these journals go and since I now have to frantically catch up on reading and work on this essay because being sick is great in that it sets you way back I’m just gonna hope this stream of consciousness is sufficient.
